Drought Face

Regional Water Authority

The Regional Water Authority invited residents to show off their Drought Face by showing off their whiskers in winter 2014-15.

Beards save water—about 5 gallons per shave—and the beard was experiencing a renaissance as everyone from film and sports stars to real estate agents sported unshaven looks.

A Drought Face symbolizes all of the small actions residents are taking to conserve water that added up to big savings, like skipping a shave or two and taking shorter showers.

Residents entered the Drought Face sweepstakes simply by putting down the razor and growing or creating a beard, then posting a photo of their stubble to the sweepstakes entry page. Residents could also enter by sharing stories and photos about the small actions they were taking to save water–like turning off the sprinklers for the winter or the faucet when brushing teeth. The sweepstakes prize: A chance to be featured on a digital billboard at Cal Expo and Business 80.

Drought Face and water-saving messages were promoted via Facebook and Google advertising, as well as media outreach.

Results were impressive and included significant media coverage, a robust online conversation about saving water, 5,864 online actions (such as page likes, shares, sweepstakes responses and more), nearly 1,300 visits, nearly 90 new “likes” for the Be Water Smart Facebook page and more than 30 sweepstakes entries.

When the statewide Association of California Water Agencies (ACWA) posted information about Drought Face on Twitter, it received the most re-tweets in ACWA’s history. Online advertising for Drought Face earned 1.4 million impressions, more than 10,000 clicks and nearly 600 post likes on Facebook, and more than 430,000 impressions and 882 clicks on Google. Billboard advertising featuring three winners garnered over 2.9 million impressions.